By Ken Walker
The leaves will fall. They will change their colors. Music will mirror the leaves changing its color and letting its new albums fall in the autumn of 2002. The year is shaping up to be quite a year for music. Rock is failing this year. There has not been much so far this year that has dropped and impressed. It is a more a year for electronic, jazz, hip-hop and neo-soul. So allow me discuss these first…
To get to a more strange note, Dan “the automator” Nakimura and Beck have an electronic/hip-hop project being released on Beck’s indie label called the electricity spawn with a release date of November 12. Automator has been on projects with many. He produced much of the Gorillaz album and has several projects with he likes of Kool Keith, Prince Paul, Del the Funky Homosapien. He has worked with Zack De La Rocha, DJ Shadow, El-P. Look for those three projects to hopefully drop this year too. Common’s Electric Circus/the ISness is set for November 26, according to the MCA record website. It is shaping to be his best drop to date. The Roots awesome new extreme horsepowered “Phrenology” is set to drop on September 17. The Roots are going to shock you with more up-tempo and less of that “organic jazz” even though they have the new addition of a rather sweet sounding guitarist, Ben Kinney. Talib Kweli’s Quality will be done “when it’s finished” but with his constant battles with Rawkus and their bad economic status, who knows? It is set for November 12 at the moment.
This is the year that rock dies. I can only hope it will come back to life. Queens of the Stone Age and their eye-dubbing new LP “Songs for the Deaf” (with appearances by Rage Against the Machine, Adam Jones of Tool and Dave Grohl handling all the drums) will drop the same day as England’s neo- saviors Coldplay. “A Rush of Blood to the Head” drops on Capitol/EMI records on September 17 and is said to have sweeter guitars– like a Jeff Beck sound. Chris Martin will likely give the trademark whine beautifully even more on this new LP. Watch also for the Jazzyfatnastees “TheTortoise and the Hare” and Weezer to drop another full length LP this winter.
Q-tip’s anticipated “Abstractionisms” is being released independently on 9-30 and includes jazz greats like Roy Hargrove, Russell Malone, etc. It is an amazing sounding album with every style and genre of music you can imagine. It is my top pick of the fall. This concentrates strictly on Q-tip’s singing vocals, jazz instrumentals, soul singing, and a bit of some alternative rock thrown into the pot. Cody Chestnutt made his noise on the 2-dollar bill with the Roots on Mtv2. He should make a louder noise with “The Headphone Masterpiece”, a double-disc set dropping on Chestnutt’s own indie label, Ready Set, GO. It drops September 30. It will feature a guitar duet with Ben Kinney, a track with the roots, Jill Scott and some production by Jazzy Jeff and the Touch of Jazz team.
